On the Need for Criterion Referenced Research and Demonstration: A Reaction to the Model of National Assessment in Citizenship.

Grannis, Joseph C.

This commissioned paper examines the National Assessment for Educational Progress model for citizenship and suggests an alternative model oriented more directly to educational and political goals. In the current model performances on the citizenship exercises can only be interpreted by the population characteristics of age, sex, parental education, race, region, size and type of community. The structural emphases of the model on population characteristics, rather than on the interactions of individuals with different environments, induces thinking in stereotypic terms. The basic question should be not who are good citizens, but what are the conditions that contribute to good citizenship. Data results in the age categories indicate a general tendency for the percentage of acceptable responses to increase with age, which denies Bruner's concept that anything could be taught in some honest way at any age. At the same time the model must recognize the identities and priorities of different social and ethnic groups which might contribute to differences in cognitive and affective development. The current model also ignores the differences in school environment. An alternative model would compare schools, programs, classrooms and take into account person-environment interactions and social and ethnic group goals. (DE) Primary type of information provided by report: Results (Interpretation).